NEW YORK — Taylor Swift has received a peace offering from Katy Perry before launching her new tour.

Swift shared a video on her Instagram Stories on Tuesday showing a package that Perry sent that included an olive branch. Inside was a letter in which Perry wrote that she was “deeply sorry” and wanted to “clear the air.”

Swift says it “means so much to me” and her video was captioned “Thank you Katy.”

The feud between the singers began in 2014 after Swift told “Rolling Stone” that another singer had taken one of her dancers. Perry then compared Swift to a character from “Mean Girls.”

Swift kicked off her Reputation tour Tuesday at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

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NEW YORK — There was one place Scottish actor James McArdle had to visit when he came to New York to perform in a critically acclaimed revival of Tony Kushner's seven-hour masterpiece “Angels in America.”

That would be Central Park. More specifically, Bethesda Fountain, which has so much meaning in the play.

McArdle says the visit made him “a wee bit emotional.” He stood and thought of lines from the play, saying it's “in my blood now and always will be.”

The Glasgow-raised actor plays the neurotic New Yorker Louis Ironson, a character partly based on Kushner himself. The two-part play isn't easy to perform. McArdle says he and the cast “need to wrestle this demon to the ground.”

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BOSTON — “Star Trek” actor George Takei has appeared in Boston to talk about his experiences in U.S. internment camps during World War II.

In an event at the Boston Public Library Tuesday, Takei discussed his family's history in the camps that put Japanese-Americans behind barbed wire between 1942 and 1946.

Takei used his family's story as the inspiration for the Broadway musical “Allegiance.”

The show tells the narrative of the fictional Kimura family, whose lives are upended when they and 120,000 other Japanese-Americans are forced to leave their homes following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

The cast of the SpeakEasy Stage Company's production of Takei's musical also performed during the event.

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NEW YORK — NBC has concluded in an internal investigation ordered after Matt Lauer's firing that it doesn't believe there is a culture of sexual harassment in its news division.

The network says that more needs to be done to ensure employees know how to report complaints about misconduct and not fear retaliation. To that end, NBC News Chairman Andy Lack said Wednesday that he's creating a way for employees to make such complaints to a figure outside the company.

Lauer, the former “Today” show host, was fired in November after it was found he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with another NBC employee. Three additional women subsequently made complaints about Lauer.

By The Associated Press

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